PORTUGAL: Justice by Force?

Successfully coaxed a few years ago by U. S. Secretary of State Frank Billings Kellogg into signing the Peace Pact "renouncing war as an instrument of national policy" (TIME, July 30, 1928) was every nation which is making war today. This summer States throughout the world were busy issuing endorsements of the peace principles recently announced by U. S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Last week Europe's general rule that American idealism, whether Republican or Democratic, should always be humored was suddenly broken by small Portugal.

Too polite or not bold enough to reject openly Secretary Hull's idealistic peace principles, the realistic Portuguese Government announced adroitly that it endorses them with reservations. After a study of these, Washington observers could only construe them as just about the neatest tying in yet made of good Mr. Hull's loose ends.

"The repeated affirmation ..." declared Portugal, ''of the principles advocated by the Secretary of State, the intellectual or sentimental adhesion of many to the said principles, their inclusion in many treaties between nations or in a document of greater scope aiming at defining the rules of life common to all States, will have, we believe, the effect of a certain moral pressure, but will produce rather limited practical action. We would be mistaken if we were to expect important results therefrom.

"If there exists a danger or preoccupation of war, it is useless to attempt to have the States disarm or reduce the armaments; if there exist grave injustices in the solution of problems of international affairs and no peaceful method is seen to make them disappear, it is useless to dissuade the victims thereof to cause justice to be respected by force, if they have it; if the nations by virtue of their own excesses or because they are exposed to the mistakes of others, must defend their economy and their financial balance, and deem it necessary to do so by raising tariffs, devaluating currency or prohibiting the entry of workers or foreign goods, they will do so."